Thomas Pyle:
The Supreme Court didn’t just issue a strong rebuke to the Obama administration’s environmental agenda last week. In ruling against the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” regulation — commonly known as MATS — the justices showed the danger of complying with a federal regulation before its future has been decided in court. This is an important lesson for states as the administration prepares to finalize its “Clean Power Plan” — a rule that could be significantly more costly than the one before the Court last week.
The court’s ruling in Michigan v. EPA came over three years after the EPA first proposed the MATS rule. The regulation, which went into effect in April of this year, sought to cut by 75 percent the amount of mercury, arsenic, and other emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants. As of January 2015, it had already turned out the lights on nearly 61,000 megawatts — enough to power 15.5 million homes — of coal-powered electricity generation.
Unsurprisingly, this regulation’s costs have been enormous. Even according to the EPA’s own estimates, MATS will cost utilities approximately $9.6 billion per year — making it one of the most expensive rules in U.S. history.
In adopting the regulation, however, the EPA did not consider these costs at all. Regulators simply calculated supposed benefits — between $4 and $6 million per year in direct benefits — as justification. The Court ruled that ignoring these costs “strayed far beyond” a reasonable interpretation of the Clean Air Act. As Justice Scalia wrote for the majority, “It is not rational . . . to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.”
The court was right to order the EPA to consider costs before adopting regulations. But for families and businesses across the country, the ruling comes as too little too late.
Even with the pending legal challenge from 23 states — which was filed shortly after MATS was finalized in 2012 — many utilities began implementing the regulation anyway. Despite the Court’s ruling, this regulatory genie cannot now be put back into its Washington bottle. Americans are still left to deal with higher energy prices resulting from this suspect regulation.
This should serve as a cautionary tale for governors who are now deciding whether their states will submit an implementation plan under the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan — especially since the stakes are even higher. With a final rule expected as soon as next month, the regulation seeks to reduce total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent over the next 15 years. States are forced to cut their emissions by varying amounts relative to a 2005 baseline, with Washington having to cut the most at 72 percent and North Dakota the least at 11 percent.
The costs of this regulation are likely to be even greater than those of MATS. According to NERA Economic Consulting, it could top $350 billion in higher electricity rates by the time it is fully implemented in 2030. Forty-three states could see double-digit electricity-rate increases between 2017 and 2031. Coal-heavy states like Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, and Montana could see spikes of over 15 percent.
In similar fashion to MATS, 14 states have already sued to stop the Clean Power Plan before it takes effect. The D.C. Circuit Court dismissed the lawsuit last month on procedural grounds, but it will continue once the rule is finalized, likely with the support of more states. Their arguments have bipartisan support, including from Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, who argued in the Wall Street Journal that the regulation is unconstitutional and violates the federal Clean Air Act.
Or the states could just follow the lawlessness set by the Obama administration’s example, and ignore Federal regulations they don’t agree with.
It’s very simple: The state need only pass a law that gives notice that it prohibits, and will no longer observe Federal agency regulations that were not created via the Constitutionally required Congressional legislation process, and will instead reserve such regulatory powers as belonging to the state to administer. The state’s authority to ignore federal agency regulations is the 10th Amendment:
What? The chief clerk of the Supreme Court didn’t re-write the law so it could be upheld? He must be getting lazy in his old age. Obama should just ignore the decision like he does with our Constitution and other laws. Nothing will happen.
Here’s an interesting story: January 6, 2016; Michigan governor declares state of emergency over Flint water lead levels
What’s interesting about it is that it’s an emergency largely of republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s own making. He finally sprang into action when it came to his attention that the EPA and DOJ have both launched official investigations into the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s children by toxic levels of lead in the drinking water. This resulted from a decision by Snyder’s appointed “city manager” to supply the city with water from a cheaper source, despite multiple warnings that the change in the water’s acidity level would cause dangerous levels of lead to leech into tap water from the supply line. This was done over the objections of elected city officials.
The EPA later notified both the city manager and the state government that elevation of lead levels in the city’s drinking water was actually happening, as predicted. Those notices were also ignored. Sometime later, parents in Flint began freaking out when their children’s doctors began informing them that their children’s blood levels of lead were reading at twice the maximum safe level.
Children are particularly susceptible to neurological damage from elevated lead levels. Even in the absence of symptoms of lead poisoning, diminished intelligence results. The effects are irreversible.
What we have here is criminal negligence, at the least. The reason we have an EPA is to keep things like this from happening.
I believe that the Flint City brought the water issue on themselves. I believe you will find he was a liberal who when faced with unintended consequences looked for a conservative to bail him out. Typical liberal strategy
Our resident troll is wrong again. I just happened to be in MI this week. It appears that the Liberal Mayor of Detroit talked The Mayor of Flint into buying water from Detroit. Detroit charged high prices to subsidize the Detroit water users. The city of Flint decided to draw their water from the river and treat it themselves. Lo and behold, when the EPA performed their periodic quality control survey of the drinking water in Flint, they showed high levels of lead. So who did all of the liberals blame? The conservative governor! Liberals always have to blame someone else for their short falls. Obama continues to blame Bush because the White House cook burned his toast yesterday morning.
@Randy, #5:
That statement is totally inaccurate, unless by “the city of Flint” you mean one of the non-elected Emergency City Managers appointed by republican Gov. Rick Snyder, which would be either Ed Kurtz, who contracted the switch-over to Flint River water, or his successor Darnell Earley, who was in charge when the switch-over was completed.
Earley now falsely claims the decision to draw water from the Flint River was made back in March 2013, when elected officials were still in control of their own city. In fact, the only thing that was decided in March 2013 was to make a switch-over from Detroit as a supplier to water from Lake Huron delivered by a new Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline. No decision was made to utilize water from the Flint River in the interim until March 2014, by which time control of the city’s affairs had been taken away from Flint’s democratically elected officials and turned over to the governor’s paid appointees.
By the way, Darnell Earley’s salary as appointed Emergency Manager of Flint was $180,000 per year. The Mayor of Flint’s current salary is half that. Darnell Earley previously earned $110,000 per year as Emergency Manager of Saginaw. He has now moved on to another appointed position: He’s the Emergency Manager of the Detroit Public Schools, with an annual salary of $210,000.
Details concerning the dangerously toxic municipal water supply of Flint, Michigan have finally begun to surface in the mainstream news.
Michigan Prosecutor Opens Probe of Flint Water Crisis
Neurologically toxic levels of lead may not be the only problem:
Flint learns of Legionnaires’ disease spike as water crisis continues
I’m wondering what sort of spin will be attempted. Possibly it will be claimed that this is somehow all the EPA’s fault; that they should have done more than alerting the Michigan state officials whose direct responsibility it was to take action to protect their residents. I suppose the EPA could have gone straight to the media rather than through proper official channels. No doubt the EPA’s critics would have found that acceptable. I mean, who needs the EPA anyway? State governments can be fully relied upon to regulate pollution and air and water quality issues in the best interests of their own residents—and in the best interests of the residents of other states, who are downstream just across the state line.